Never Forget
by Queen of the Paperclips
Summary: What would chapter 13 look like?


Chapter 13: Never Forget

The boy just stood there, staring at the tub of water. It had been so long that he almost did not remember what the water was for. Was he supposed to drink it? Were they going to drown him? The boy panicked for a moment before he realized that he was alone in this sterile room. His only company was a mirror on the wall, a towel on the floor, and the tub of water. But was he really safe? Did he dare let down his guard?

After frantically glancing at the door the boy carefully took off the rags still hanging on to his body. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the mirror on the wall. Slowly he walked over to it. The look he gave himself in the reflected image was almost shy, a glance full of wonder and fear at what he had turned into. Before the island he had been a clean, healthy schoolboy. Now, with his brown skin and long, straw-like hair, he looked like a savage. The boy wondered if he could ever turn back into that innocent schoolboy. The more he thought about it the less likely it seemed as if he would be able to go back to sitting in a classroom with twenty other boys. Twenty other boys wanting to beat him, to hurt him, kill him…

Angrily the boy turned away and stalked over to the tub. What use was it thinking about those things? They were rescued, just like Simon said. The officer said that they had seen their fire. In the end it was all about the fire. Remembering the heat and smoke the boy carefully lowered himself in the now tepid water. For a moment he let himself just sit in the tub, pretending that the water would wash away all of his sins.

Then he saw the chunk of soap innocently put in easy reach. For the second time he glanced down at his body, this time with a tinge of self-consciousness. He was English for Christ's sake, what was he doing shivering in a tub of water? With that thought the boy stretched out and grabbed the soap. Mindlessly he started rubbing his dirt-saturated skin. Harder and harder he scrubbed the soap again his skin. He could see red stuff under the dirt. Blood! What was blood doing on his skin? Whose was it? Simon's? Piggy's? His own? The boy rubbed the soap down until there was none left. The boy ignored this and started scratching with bitten down nails. Why was the blood not coming off?

In a flurry of movements the boy thrashed in the water, indescribably frustrated at how the blood persisted. The bathroom was filled with grunts and groans filled with aggravation. The harder the boy scrubbed the more blood was welling up. Why, why, why, _why was it still there_?

Panting, the boy lay back in the pink tinted water. The boy could not stop sobbing as he realized that the blood would never be gone. It would always be on him, a mark the island had left to show everyone what he had done.

The boy's head snapped towards the door as a woman walked in. His eyes drank in the site of her feminine face and the subtle curves of her body. He had almost forgotten what a girl looked like, all soft and pretty. This lady looked like his mother.

The nurse held her clipboard in front of her chest like a shield. She had seen some of the other boys and some of them had become violent when she came close, most notably the one with the black hair and animal-like eyes. When she was checking his hair for lice that boy had _bit_ her. Luckily it seemed that this boy was not going to become that violent. Sitting in the tub like that he looked like a lost puppy.

Slowly she moved into the room enough to close the door behind her. Methodically, she started looking over his body for injuries. She was shocked to notice bloody scratches littered over his body. An glance at the little boys fingers revealed blood under his fingernails.

Hiding the shock behind a mask of professionalism the nurse gingerly moved forward another step. "Hello," a cough obstructed the end of her greeting; she tried again, "Hello, my name's Miss. Elizabeth."

Miss. Elizabeth paused for a moment before realizing that the boy was not going to start talking. For what seemed like forever he just stared at her as she fidgeted under his surprisingly adult-like eyes. "I- I'm here to- to make sure you didn't get any diseases while on that island."

Still he did not say anything. Mentally shaking her head Miss. Elizabeth forced herself to move forward. Kneeling down she grabbed the towel left on the floor. As she opened it up she tried to smile at the boy. "The sooner you get out the sooner you can get back to your friends."

The boy did not want to get back to the other boys. He did not want to see the same faces that just yesterday wanted him _dead_. But he had to go. Someone had to make sure that no littluns were left behind. Did he even know everyone's name? No, no he did not. That was Piggy's job, and Piggy was dead. Tiredly the boy looked down at his blood-covered hands. Piggy should not be dead.

Miss. Elizabeth was glad when the boy finally got out of the water. She would have to get one of the cabin boys to empty the tub before the blood tinted the sides. Shaking her head she wrapped the towel around the boy, noticing once again how small and skinny he was. Such a contrast from the younger boy's distended stomachs.

Standing up Miss. Elizabeth was relieved to note that the boy seemed willing to follow her out of the room. She held out her hand, "Well?" She asked, "Are you ready to go?"

The boy glanced at her hand, noticing how clean the skin under her fingernails appeared. Looking at his hand showed that they now were covered in little bloody scratches. Funny, did he get those in the forest?

The clearing of a throat made the boy quickly put his hand into that of the woman's: Elizabeth. Miss. Elizabeth was her name. He was not going to forget any more names.

As they walked down a small corridor the boy managed to look into several of the rooms they passed. One was filled with beds, which in turn were filled with piles of littluns. It was strange to see them without smears of fruit around their mouths. They looked warm and happy, a sharp contrast to the image they displayed when the officer had first appeared on the island. Mixed in with the littluns were the hunters, also looking vastly different. But the boy easily remembered how terrifying they could be with their masks on. Noticeably not there were Samneric, Roger and Jack. He and Miss. Elizabeth kept walking.

Two doors down revealed Sam and Eric with an important looking officer. Their hands were clenched together as if they would be torn away from each other at any moment. The boy felt a red hot anger build up inside of him when he remember what they had done to him on the island. But as Miss. Elizabeth tugged him down the hall the boy realized that he could not blame them. They were just trying to survive, like everyone else.

Further down the hallway the boy could hear shouts coming from behind a closed door. Miss. Elizabeth, noticing his curious look, said, "One of the boys kept biting people. We had to put him in a locked room."

The boy was not aware that Roger could yell that loudly. Remembering Piggy, the boy hoped that Roger was miserable.

Finally they stopped and Miss. Elizabeth gestured him into a room at the end of the hall. The boy began entering but stopped in the doorway. On a little table against the wall was sitting Jack. Red headed, blue-eyed, ugly faced Jack Merridew. The boy just stood there.

Jack looked up, "'Lo Ralph." He muttered as a man with glasses poked at him.

Ralph walked over to the table Miss. Elizabeth pointed to on the other side of the room from Jack. Hauling himself up gave him a second to think about his response. Should he launch himself at Jack? Or should he just ignore him altogether?

As Miss. Elizabeth conversed with the man with glasses on the other side of the room Ralph decided to speak.

"You have Piggy's glasses," He said, looking at Jack through a shock of hair.

Jack looked down at his lap at the broken glass and wire.

"You have Piggy's glasses," Ralph repeated. It was the only thing he had said since they had gotten on the cruiser.

Jack picked up the glasses and mockingly held them up to his face. Then with a snarl he hurled them at Ralph, "I don't want them anymore. Who wants something that belonged to that fat pig of a boy?"

Ralph hopped off the table to pick the glasses off the floor. Cradling them to his chest he glared at Jack through his hair, "His name wasn't Piggy, even though that's what we called him. He had asthma and lived with his aunti. An' I want his glasses. No one's going to forget Piggy, or Simon, while I'm around."

Jack stared back, narrowed-eyed and curled in upon himself, like a caged animal.

Ralph put Piggy's broken, bent, destroyed glasses onto his face and intently looked at Jack through the one unbroken glass, "I'm never going to forget."


End file.
